FIG. 1 depicts telecommunications system 100 in the prior art. Telecommunications system 100 comprises telecommunications network 101; telecommunications endpoints 102-1 through 102-M, wherein M is a positive integer; registrar server 103; proxy server 104; and calling endpoint 105, interconnected as shown. Telecommunications system 100 is capable of Session Initiation Protocol-based signaling. Session Initiation Protocol (or “SIP”) is a set of standardized communication rules for initiating and maintaining communications for telephony, presence-based systems, instant messaging, and other telecommunications applications.
Telecommunications network 101 is a telecommunications network such as the Internet, the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN), and so forth. Network 101 comprises or is connected to one or more transmission-related nodes such as gateways, routers, or switches that are used to direct packets from one or more sources to the correct destinations of those packets. Network 101 is capable of handling SIP-based messages that are transmitted among two or more SIP-capable processing systems.
Each of telecommunications endpoints 102-1 through 102-M, as well as calling endpoint 105, is a SIP-capable device such as an Internet-protocol telephone, a notebook computer, a personal digital assistant (PDA), a tablet computer, and so forth. Each endpoint is capable of originating outgoing calls and receiving incoming calls, in well-known fashion. In addition, each endpoint is capable of one or more communication modes that comprise, but are not limited to voice, video, data, email, instant messaging, and chat.
One issue that exists in telecommunications system 100 has to do with a user having multiple endpoints (as opposed to a single endpoint) that register with registrar server 103. Specifically, when the user has access to routing features that enable the endpoints to be notified in a particular order, the registering of new endpoints or the re-registering of existing endpoints might skew the order in which the endpoints are notified. From a standards perspective, the Session Initiation Protocol does specify a mechanism for the ordering, or prioritization, of endpoints by using a parameter referred to as a “q-value”; the higher the endpoint's q-value, the higher its priority relative to the other endpoints of the same user. In reality, however, the user of multiple endpoints typically has no control over the ordering in which an incoming call is routed to his or her endpoints. In some cases, the q-value of an endpoint is preset by the endpoint's vendor; preset q-values can be a problem when an end user utilizes endpoints from different vendors because each vendor follows its own rules for presetting the q-values. In other cases, the q-value is not preset in an endpoint, and the endpoint registers with some general, default q-value. In those cases, all registered endpoints that use the default queue value essentially have the same incoming call priority. The effects of using multiple endpoints with uncertain q-values can be annoying to their user, create unnecessary message traffic, and waste network resources.
What is needed is a technique to prioritize the telecommunications endpoints that belong to a user, without some of the disadvantages in the prior art.